“That was you, wasn’t it?” Her smile was wan.
“I’d come by earlier, and you weren’t here.”
“You could have called to find out when I would be.”
“After your message, I wasn’t sure how welcome I’d be. I thought it might be harder for you to say no if I showed up in person.”
His sister shook her head slowly. “I never said I was angry with you. You’re always welcome.” She stepped away from the doorway. “Come on in. The girls are at school, and Aelsya’s at work. I don’t start until next semester. Things are still a mess here. I get tired more quickly.”
“It’s the heavier gravity.”
“The heaviness of more than that.”
Van waited to say more until she had shut the door. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner. We had a problem.”
“You’ve always had problems, brother.”
Van accepted the slightly bitter words. “First, the head of IIS died in a ship accident. Second, my ship was badly damaged, and third, I was requested to testify before the Coalition Assembly. I left as soon as the ship was ready. We docked at orbit station late yesterday.”
Sappho sank into the new armchair in the sitting room, but one that seemed similar to one Van recalled from her house in Bannon.
Van took a straight-backed chair. “Have you heard from Arturo?”
“I haven’t heard a word.”
“I stopped by the embassy. Well…actually, I met with the third secretary outside the embassy. She’s going to see what she can find out.”
“Do you want to tell me why you didn’t go to the embassy?”
“Do you want to know the whole story?” he countered.
“It might be easier.”
“It’s a long story,” he began. “It actually started on the Fergus…” Van told her almost everything about his encounters with the RSF, including Commander Baile, and the effects of the Economic Security Act, and his efforts at RSF headquarters. He avoided the Revenant issue. “…and that’s probably why they want me for questioning—because they don’t know what I know or who might know. Otherwise, they’d just have people looking to shoot me. They may anyway.”
Sappho studied him for a long time. “You always looked like Dad Cicero. The same things bother you, too, but he was a thinker. You’re a doer.”
“That’s not always good,” Van pointed out.
“It’s better that way, but it’s never easy on the people around you. Or those who love you.” She paused. “Do you still have a job? You said that your boss…”
“I have a job. He named me his successor. I’m the head—the managing director of IIS. That was another reason it was hard to get away.”
“You…you’re the head of one of the biggest foundations in the Arm, and you’ve only been with them something like three years?”
“It’s absurd, when you look at it that way,” Van agreed.
“I wondered where you got all those credits you sent.” She shook her head. “You didn’t borrow those?”
“No. I had a healthy stipend as the senior director, and I never had a chance to spend much of it. So I sent everything I could.”
“You’ve always been generous that way. I remember when you came up with—”
“I had the credits, and you needed them.”
“You never told Cicero and Almaviva, did you?”
“No. There was no reason to.”
Sappho shook her head. “You haven’t changed. You still tell people what you think they need to know.”
Van glanced around the sitting room, taking in the thick white walls and the high ceilings. “It’s a good house.”
Sappho smiled tightly. “It’s better than anything we could have bought in Bannon. I worried about using the credits. They weren’t ours. Aelsya kept telling me…that…not spending them…would be wasting them…that my fathers didn’t want us or their grandchildren to live in poverty because of what happened to them, and that you wouldn’t have wanted that, either.”
“No…I’d hoped…” What had he hoped, exactly? “I’d hoped they would have come.”
“They couldn’t leave. You know that. No matter how bad things got.”
“I didn’t realize…”
“They weren’t always that bad…and you believed…you wanted things to be better. That’s one thing where you and Arturo were alike.”
Van didn’t want to think about that. “I still hoped they’d come with you.” Hope always warred with experience. Van knew that, but he’d never wanted to deny hope, no matter what experience said. After another long silence, he finally spoke again. “Sometimes, I just wonder. I never wanted to hurt anyone. But there never was a place for me in Bannon. At least, I never thought there was, and I never found it. Now, Dad Cicero, Dad Almaviva…they’re gone…and we’re here. I can’t help thinking…” His words trailed off.
“Whatever caused it all, big brother, it wasn’t you. I can’t condemn you for wanting to live free. For not wanting always to look over your shoulder. That’s what I want. I didn’t know it until I got here. It’s sad, though. Other people shouldn’t have to suffer, or die, because we want freedom. But that’s one of the prices. You warned us. Dad Cicero and Dad Almaviva—they understood and chose. Arturo never understood. He always thought that education and position would protect him. That they should protect him. Life isn’t like that.”
“What about Arturo?” Van already had a good idea, based on what Emily had already told him, but he wanted to hear what Sappho said.
“You’ve already guessed. It’s in your eyes.”
“It’s a guess. I want to hear what you know.”
“Arturo was angry with you when you left. He complained that all the publicity and all that you had done was making life harder for him, and for all of us. He said…he said that you had always done what you wanted, and you didn’t care how it affected everyone else. You just had to do what you wanted to do.”
“In some ways,” Van admitted, “he’s right. Go on.”
Sappho looked down. “He kept saying that you never thought about what it would do to the rest of us. When the credits came in,
